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Senegal Thick-Knee | Burhinus senegalensis
Senegalese griel | Alcaraván senegalés
The thick-knee of the Nile: a small, strongly water-bound thick-knee that lives along the whole river in Egypt and has adapted remarkably well to people there. In Cairo it nests on flat roofs, and its plaintive call rings out over the city after sunset.
Voice
At dusk and at night a series of plaintive, whistling notes, pi-pi-pi-pee-pee-peeoo, first swelling then dying away, higher and thinner than Eurasian Thick-Knee. Birds often call in chorus along the river, sometimes also by day.
Recording: He Wenjin/文进 — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
Smaller and slimmer than Eurasian Thick-Knee, with a long, mainly black bill with only a small yellow base. The upperparts are sandy-brown with fine dark streaks, the breast lightly streaked, the belly white. The eye is large and yellow, the legs yellow-green. The key feature is on the folded wing: above a narrow black bar lies a broad, plain grey wing panel, without the white central bar of Eurasian Thick-Knee. In flight a single white patch on the primaries instead of two.
Confusion species
Eurasian Thick-Knee (Burhinus oedicnemus), mainly a winter visitor in Egypt, is larger and bulkier, with a short bill that is yellow over much of its base, and a black-white-black bar on the folded wing; in flight two white primary patches. Spotted Thick-Knee (Burhinus capensis) is spotted and has no wing bar, and occurs only in south-west Arabia.
Habitat
Banks and sandbars along the Nile and large canals, river islands, the shores of Lake Nasser, fields and orchards in the valley, and in towns flat roofs, waste ground and parks. Rarely strays far from water.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
In the region almost confined to Egypt, where it is resident along the whole Nile Valley, from the delta and Cairo to Luxor, Aswan and Lake Nasser; also locally in the oases and on the edge of the Faiyum. Elsewhere in the region at most a vagrant. Beyond the region widespread in the Sahel and savanna belt, from Senegal and Gambia to Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya, along large rivers and lakes.
- Resident
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Anyone staying overnight in Cairo, Luxor or Aswan will almost certainly hear it after sunset. By day resting birds are easiest to see from a boat on the Nile, on sandbars and islets and along the banks. In Cairo, also check flat roofs and bare plots between the houses.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened and common in Egypt. It benefits from the inhabited Nile Valley and even nests on roofs, but elsewhere loses banks and sandbars to building and river regulation.
Scientific name
Burhinus senegalensis | (Swainson, 1837)
Swainson described the species in 1837 as OEdicnemus Senegalensis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Burhinus was introduced in 1811 by Illiger. Burhinus is Greek, from bous 'ox' and rhis 'nose', after the heavy, broad base of the bill. senegalensis is New Latin for 'of Senegal', the source of the type material. The specimen the first description was based on came from Senegal.